Dinner
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: In the beginning of her relationship with Jack, Kate finds that with the help of her friends, even the simplest things like dinner can bring the magic of normality back to her. JATE


**Dinner**

After three hours of Charlie and Hurley's moaning, they had given in and decided to have dinner earlier than usual. Then sun was only just setting, but the small fires were set up all around the beach. It was one of the rare occassions where the two camps came together, and those who stayed at the caves would walk that mile long path down to the beach, and they would spend the evening together. Kate liked these moments more than anyone else from the beach, mainly because it meant that she got to spend the evening with Jack without having to either spent the night sleeping on a scratchy cave floor, or walking back from the caves at what she thought to be about two in the morning.

She sat near her own fire while the day's boar was cooking over a larger fire that Locke tended to like he was mesmerised by the dead pig. She wouldn't eat it. Surviving a plane crash didn't mean that she would start eating meat. After all there was plenty of fruit around for her to eat. When the boar meat (which to her smelt like a hamburger made out of dung) was ready, she wandered over to sit with the others, if only to be sociable, and also, to avoid being stuck with Sawyer for another night.

"Kate!" She looked in the direction of the voice to see Charlie flagging her down by waving his arm madly in the air. Beside him was Claire, who had her son in her arms, and on his other side was Hurley.

"Hey." She said, slumbing down in the cool sand next to Claire and crossing her legs. A few moments later, she felt arms around her waist and someone moving around behind her, sitting with their chest against her back.

"Three guesses." He said, covering her eyes with his hands.

She sighed playfully. She knew exactly who it was. She knew his hands from anyone elses without having to guess. "Hello Jack." She said in a slightly sarcastic tone. Jack wasn't very playful by nature, and his rare child-like side only came out when Kate was around, or when people weren't running up to him asking him to stitch up a cut thats smaller than a papercut.

"Where have you been all day?" Charlie asked. "We haven't seen anything of you two since breakfast."

Kate smirked to herself, as she picked up a peice of fruit from the sand infront of her, she smiled at the memory of Guava. "We were together." She said. "Away from you guys." Recognition of what she was talking about dawned on Charlie and Hurley's faces; a mixture of horror and being completely grossed out. "Well you asked!" She pointed out with a laugh.

"Come on, Charlie, you mean to say that you've never done anything like that?" Claire asked him with a laugh.

Charlie raised an eyebrow at her. "You mean running off from everyone and copulating in a bunch of trees? No, I can't say I have." He said.

"Charlie, you complain when we're verbally copulating, but you complain when we're not." Jack pointed out.

"That doesn't mean I need to hear every detail!"

"There were a lot more details than that." Kate said.

"I don't want to hear them." Charlie said.

"Yeah, dudes, I'm eating here,"

Jack rolled his eyes, a movement mirrored by Kate. "You'd think that adults could talk about sex, couldn't you?" He said to Kate, who laughed.

"Adults?" Charlie asked, like he had never heard the word before.

"Dude, when did that happen? And how do we make it stop?" Hurley remarked, backing Charlie up. Kate nearly choked on her Guava from laughing so hard. Jack fell on his back in the sand, and Claire rolled her eyes at the two men, no, boys in tall bodies.

Having recovered from laughing about ten minutes later, Jack disappeared and came back with more boar meat. Kate made a face as he sat down beside her. "What?" He asked.

"How can you eat that?" She asked, looking at it as if it were the dung it smelt like.

"With my mouth." He said. "See." He ate a bit to show her and she gave him a swipe around the head. "What was that for?"

"That used to be alive!" She told him.

"Come on, Kate, it's just a bit of meat." Jack told her.

"Trust me." Hurley added. "It's not good for your digestion to eat just fruit." They all grimaced at the idea, Hurley more so.

"Can't say I've had any problems so far." Kate said. "But when I do, I'll think about eating different food."

"Just don't let me know when it does." Charlie said. "I've had enough talk to put me off my food for one day."

"He says while stuffing food into his mouth." Jack smiled.

Kate smiled, leaning her head on Jack's shoulder despite the horrible smell of the boar drifting up to her. Yes, she liked these evenings. It was nights like this that took away the reality of being marooned on an unknown island. She could forget about the dangers in the trees, and just be a normal person for once. Strange that something as simple as dinner could make her feel whole again.


End file.
